Workmen's advocate., 1887-03-12
THE TRUE PLAN OF SOCIAL
 REFORM.
BY DR. A DOUAI.

production differs essentially from all earlier methods. It tcannot he illustrated by examples taken from the latter-such as we find in the economical writings of renowned writers like Adam Smith, Ricardo, Carey and others. It must be analysed from its own facts studied in all its bearings and understood in all its consequences. The earlier modes of -chattels, not persons-or with feudal servants whose means of life were guar anteed by their lords or masters. They produced for the market some few su- pertluous wares, worked chiefly for the immediate wants of limited society and had little expansive force. They employed few tools and fewer machines, required thoroughness and individual skill ill every worker who had to be an artisan, and little division of labor The soil and all other means of production were not for sale, but the workers were for sale, or else fettered to home mar ket residence and severely regulated guild. The capital employed was insig- niticant, and new inventions were drowned down, or remained individual secrets. Science itself was the secret of a class.
 When the new capitalistic production originated Cat the end of the Middle Ages, or later) the workman was mad, freeman, free in the double sense O the word, in that he was not bound t any particular master, but free to see his master or employer, and that he WE free from his means of labor and to won for some employer for ready cash Is had no share in the soil and in the as cumulated capital of all kinds, but h4 to find livelihood for himself by Ii own care. His employer was a capit istic owner of machines, tools, materiM for work etc, who directed the detf of the entire process of production. 13
 
 everywhere and was made on a la scale with more improved machin and subdivision of labor; former Il @l itations of markets and trades were 2 moved; an enormous number of inY tlonS and discoveries revolution &8 every detail of production and vie greater profits to the employer W greater accumulation of capital i# hands, and allowed an ever-incres scale of production and comms seve. They call that free trade;" but it must not be forgotten that it is free trade as well in human labor The workman having no more merchandise to sell, had to sell his own working force for what it would bring in the market-whch under no circumstances could, on an average, be more than what would buy his own and a family's accustomed necessities of life. That might in the beginning of this era be enough for him and for some savings besides; but this mode of pro- duction being planless, every producing capitalist trying to undersel his compet- itOrs for the market by cheapness of wares, it led to commercial and financial crises which returned in every decade. In each of these crises, employment was | scanty or lacking, and an abundance of wage-wOrkers offering themselves for employment, wages tended more and more downwards-a tendency limited only to some extent by the organizations of workers for mutual protection and support. We are, however, now in worlds commercial crisis which will hardly ever be followed by better times, because dozen nations which have adopted the capitalistic mode of produc tion, rival each other in underselling, and the working people are impoverished everywhere so as to be unable to p1r- chase freely the wares made by them selves. The sales of wares shrink in almost every market, or else the profits do.
 It would be ridiculous to compare our manner of production and its effects to any earlier one, all the features of the same being altered. But the great ma jority of people close their eyes to these vast differences, some from lack of knowledge of the facts; some from ego istic motives, because they are vastly benefited by denying the truth. It is this blindness to scientific and evident | facts which charantoriu,., Ill IL.